


First, Do No Harm

by Paeonia



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Infatuation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:18:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8427190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paeonia/pseuds/Paeonia
Summary: Daniel never got to help care for Peggy after the rebar incident. To Peggy's chagrin, he gets his chance a couple of weeks later.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keysburg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysburg/gifts).



She protests at first, but Daniel’s right: it’s time to leave.  

They’ve already pulled a couple of all-nighters at the office that week, sifting for clues about Jack.  There’s no sense in yet another late night; nothing's left that won’t keep till morning.  Peggy’s tired and famished, and she knows Daniel is too. She thinks about Daniel sitting across the table from her at a restaurant, and she starts to smile: a silly besotted smile, probably.  

She doesn’t care.  She looks up at Daniel’s office — the blinds are open, she can see him locking his desk and standing up. She catches his eye as he goes to pick up his crutch. He smiles, and she can feel her silly besotted smile growing wider. He pulls the blinds, and she hurries to gather her papers and folders, opening her drawer with her toe. She drops the files into the drawer and gasps in pain: one of the papers in the fresh new stack from the LAPD has sliced a cut in her right forefinger. 

She looks up. Daniel has locked his office and is turning around, and there’s that lovely white pocket square in his jacket pocket and she’ll not ruin yet another one of those. She fumbles for her purse, pulls out her own handkerchief and winds it around her own finger, closes the drawer with her foot, and locks it, pocketing the key as she always does during the day. 

“Ready?” asks Daniel. 

“Quite ready.” She stands up and follows him out of the bullpen. 

"Hey. What'd you do to your hand?" he asks. 

"Oh, this? Paper cut, that's all." 

He stops short and takes her hand. "Aw, jeez. Let's take a look at it —"  

She gently lifts her hand away. "If you do, there'll probably be some form we'll have to fill out. Really, Daniel, it's fine. What did you have in mind for dinner?" 

He starts telling her about a new Italian place, it’s not too far away from the office and it’s on the way, and part of Peggy’s mind thinks that it sounds like a perfect choice for a nice relaxing dinner, and another part starts wondering exactly how soon could this place get a cutlet and a whiskey in front of her, and then they’re at the top of the stairs and she realizes she's forgotten her purse. She insists that Daniel go ahead down the stairs, he’ll want to talk to the cover agent who’s on for the night anyway, and she goes back to her desk. 

Agent Wong is on the evening shift, and he asks a quick question, and it turns into another, and she thinks of something else, and they keep talking as she gets out her purse and locks the drawer again and he walks with her to the top of the stairs. The straps of her purse dig into her injured finger, but she ignores it at first, she has another idea and calls out to Agent Wong again, and he leans over the rail as they clear up a few more points, and she’s saying good night and rewrapping her handkerchief around her finger as she starts down the stairs and — 

“ _Oh!_ ” Her heel slips on the edge of the step, and her foot catches and turns under her as she starts to fall. She’s able to catch herself on the banister, but she ends up in a sprawl. Her purse rolls down a few more steps. Her finger still hurts and blast it, now her side does too, she only just got those stitches from the rebar out a couple of days ago…. 

“Agent Carter! Are you all right?” Agent Wong hurries back around and starts coming down the stairs. 

“I’m fine, really —” Peggy starts to pick herself up and gasps. She’s done something to her left ankle. And at that moment Daniel appears at the bottom of the steps.  

“ _Peggy!_ ” He starts up the stairs. 

“I’m all right, Daniel, really, I just missed a step —” and really, of all the humiliating — 

“First aid kit?” asks Agent Wong.  

“Yeah, please,” says Daniel. “Peggy, here, sit down. Are you all right?” 

“I’m _fine_.” She pulls herself to her feet, takes a step down, and cries out before she can stop herself. Daniel gives her a reproving look. 

“Sit,” he insists, and she sits. “Knee? ankle? Which one?” 

“My left ankle — bloody cannot _believe_ this —” 

Agent Wong reappears at the top of the stairs. “Just the elastic wrap,” says Daniel. The tightly rolled bandage arcs through the air and Daniel catches it. “Thanks.” 

He sits down on the stairs and gently takes off her left shoe. Her ankle is already starting to look a little thick.  

“It’s nothing,” she insists. 

“It’s probably a sprain,” says Daniel. He carefully positions her foot and starts wrapping it with the elastic bandage, first in a couple of times around her foot, to form a sort of shoe, and then in snug, overlapping loops around her ankle.  Then he takes off her right shoe. 

“Ready?" he says. "Might want to lead with your left foot, there —” 

He extends his right hand, the way he did after she popped her stitch in the van the night of the Chadwick gala, and she pulls herself to her feet.  

“Thanks, I’ve got it.” She squeezes his hand in thanks, and then leans on the banister as she makes her way down the stairs. Daniel lets her pass and then follows her, carrying her shoes in his crutch hand. 

Down in the front office, she lets him give her a couple of aspirin, and then waits while he brings the car around to the front door. She’s still embarrassed, and protests a little for form’s sake, but if it hurts this much just walking out to the car…. 

Daniel steals a kiss as he helps her into the passenger seat. He comes around to the driver’s side, gets in, passes his crutch to the back seat, and starts the car. “You know, if you didn’t want to go to the Italian place, you could’ve just said so.” 

His tone is reproachful, but his mouth is twitching. “I assure you,” says Peggy, “If I didn’t want spaghetti I would have said something instead of just flinging myself down the stairs. And I would very much like to go to dinner first; I’m tired of the food at the hospital and the canteen’s likely closed anyway.” 

“Who said anything about the hospital?” 

“You’re really not going to insist on dragging me to have a doctor look at my ankle?” 

“Wasn’t planning on it.” He looks over at her. “What? Surprised? Disappointed? We can go if you really want to.” 

“That’s _quite_ all right.” 

“You sure? I don't want to wreck your plans." He looks over his shoulder and pulls out onto the street. "Nah, I didn’t say anything because I figured it would be a waste of breath." Peggy rolls her eyes. "But your ankle doesn’t look that bad anyway.” 

“You don’t think so?” 

“No. We can see how it looks in the morning, but I bet if you stay off it for a couple of days it'll be fine.” 

Oh. That’s exactly what she’d thought. It’s a little disconcerting to have Daniel agreeing with her. 

“We’d better leave the Italian place for another time, though,” he continues. “We should get you home so you can get that foot up.” 

Peggy sighs. Daniel’s probably right about that, too. Funny how it isn’t as infuriating coming from him. 

“What about dinner?" she asks. "You must be starving. I know I am.” 

“We can figure that out when we get there. There’s gotta be something in the cupboard, right? The Jarvises won’t mind if we rummage around?” 

“Not at all, they made it quite clear that I was to have the run of the pantry while they’re away. I just… don't really know what’s there. If nothing else, I’m sure Mr. Jarvis has laid in a good supply of crackers and cocktail olives and tomato juice.” 

“That and some hamburger, and we've got a meatloaf.” 

 

They pull up in front of the house. As she climbs the front steps, Daniel supports her hand with his so that she doesn't have to put as much weight on her ankle. Once they’re inside, he walks her to her bedroom and points to her bed. “Sit.” 

She sits down and pulls him into a long kiss before she finally lets him unwrap her bandage.  He goes to reconnoiter the kitchen while she takes off her stockings and changes her clothes.  When she’s done, she picks up the bandage and limps back out to the kitchen. 

“So what are you finding?” she asks. 

Daniel emerges from the pantry with a couple of potatoes. He's taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves. “You were supposed to call me when you were ready.” 

“Will you be giving me a little bell to ring next? It’s just a sprained ankle, you said so yourself. It's hardly the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” 

He puts the potatoes down. “No. But it’s the thing that’s happened most recently, right? So let’s go take care of it.” 

In a few minutes she’s sitting on the couch in the living room. Daniel's sitting on the other end with her left foot in his lap, rewrapping her ankle.  Her ankle hurts, her side hurts, and even her finger hurts again. 

And for a moment, she's so happy she almost forgets to breathe. 

She'd come to L.A. hoping to patch things up with Daniel, and it all worked out, and now she's watching Daniel wind an elastic bandage around her ankle, and the sight of Daniel's hands and forearms as he works is just... hypnotically beautiful. And where did he pick up this skill? During the war, perhaps? He seems to be able to turn his hand to almost anything.... 

"All set," he says, and smiles, and then lightly tickles the bottom of her other foot. She yelps and wallops him with a throw pillow. He's improvised an ice bag using aluminum foil and a kitchen towel; he puts the bag on her foot, reminds her to keep her foot elevated, and heads back to the kitchen to see about dinner. 

Peggy watches him go and lets her thoughts drift for a while: the business with Jack... the new case that came in today... Daniel tickling the bottom of her foot, the wicked creature.... She thinks of the last time she was lying wounded on a couch while Daniel saw to everything. She doesn't like to think back to that night — it was horrible enough on its own, and then with what happened later  — but she remembers watching him call the office and then come over to check on her, how _safe_ she felt....  

Her reverie is broken by the smell of cooking onions. She's rested long enough, she decides, and she wants to watch Daniel cook, or at least be around him, so she eases herself up and starts down the hall. She makes it about halfway before Daniel sticks his head out of the kitchen and orders her back to the couch.  

Instead she limps over to the dining room, sits down, puts her foot up on a chair, and puts the ice bag on her ankle. "You told me not to walk on it," she explains.  

"You know, you're a terrible patient," says Daniel. He shakes his head and goes back in the kitchen. 

Fifteen minutes later, he's pushing a little cart out to the dining room. "No hamburger," he said, "but I found some eggs and some other stuff. This should tide us over." 

It's something involving eggs and onions and thin slices of potatoes and salami, and it's hot and there's plenty of it and it's just perfect. And bless Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis and their preparedness: there's even a box of biscuits in the pantry for dessert.  

After dinner, Peggy drags her two chairs to the kitchen, so that she can dry the dishes as Daniel washes them, and supervise as he makes tea. Once the kitchen's cleaned up, they use the little cart to bring their tea and coffee back to the living room.  

Daniel won't give Peggy her tea until her foot is up, so she grudgingly complies. A minute or two later, he's sitting next to her, his left arm around her shoulder. She closes her eyes as he plants a kiss on top of her head. 

"How's the tea?" he asks.  

"Perfect," she says. 

"You haven't even drunk any yet." 

"I gave you the directions, of course it's perfect." He cuddles her a little closer, and she takes a sip of the tea. It's perfect enough. 

He didn't have to do all this. She could have managed by herself. But as soon as she thinks it, she knows the answer: Once again, Daniel knows she  _can_ manage by herself — of course he does — he just doesn't want her to _have_ to. Even in a silly little thing like this, he wants to be with her.  

 

Just as she wouldn't stand for leaving him on his own if the situations were reversed. 

 

Fair's fair. Her heart lifts. She smiles and relaxes a little more against him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For @keysburg for her birthday.
> 
> Recipe: [Portuguese sausage fritatta (In Portuguese, _tortilha_ )](http://leitesculinaria.com/10114/recipes-portuguese_sausage_frittata.html). There's no chouriço (or even chorizo) in the pantry, so Daniel's making do with what's on hand.


End file.
